Taking Journalism was one of the most rewarding decisions I’ve made in high school. Admittedly, I was nervous upon enrollment. I didn’t know much about the course load, I was already taking on an AP Literature course, and full year electives can seem like a daunting commitment. Within a few weeks, however, all of my apprehensions were gone.

Journalism has taught me much about English, in ways that I hadn’t used it before. It was a course in communication, current events, and writing– often creatively. Never before this course had I needed to develop interview skills as both the interviewer and the interviewee. I’d never written for the purpose of publication. And I’d never collaborated with my classmates on such a level that I had to during this class. I learned to speak and write with a more confident, more sophisticated tone. I learned to write what was important over telling a story. I learned much about freedom of the press and how that applies to schools and school publications. But most of all, I learned about being part of a team.

News Groups are a group of students that work closely together throughout the second half of the year to write compelling and professional articles for the Pennridge Pendulum. These articles are about noteworthy happenings, people, or topics. They could cover world news, community events, or feature significant people who’d made some sort of outstanding impact no matter the scale.

Unfortunately, our time with News Groups was cut short this year but what I can say from the time that we did have is that it was truly one of the most enriching experiences of my entire education. To produce a real and final product every week that went beyond the confines of our teacher’s eyes and into the hands of people all over the school, and in the community as a whole, meant more than most of what I’ve written in my life. These pieces varied from 300 to over a thousand words, sometimes all of them profound and deep and other times, merely informative, researched, and factual. Regardless of what it was that we had written, it took time, cooperation, and a genuine care for the article and the people that worked to write it. It was a bonding experience that left me feeling accomplished and close to my classmates.

Journalism is hardly just a class, it’s an investment in your writing. It is an internship in a profession you may not pursue but could always use the knowledge of. It is a community, a team, a family.